<p>Thank you for taking the time to read this Thread; any information that is provided will be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I am a senior in high school and am decideing between my options for pre-medical studies. Right now I am decideing between William and Mary, UVA, James Madison, Virginia Tech, and VCU. I am a Virginia resident and would like to attend Johns Hopkins School of medicine for neurosurgery. Right now I am trying construct a personalized pre-medical path in order to achieve the goal I believe I was put on this earth to complete. I want with my whole heart to help humanity through this dream and have some very important desisions to make. For example William and Mary offers a degree neuroscience. I do not know all that this degree entails but I do wander that biology, neuroscience degree might set me on the desired path. I have done well in school and do not wish to post all of my statiscs that the whole may see but do feel comfortable in the question of my aceptaance into these schools. Thank you again for any infomation provided.</p>
<p>Yay. Another HSer who thinks he was put on this earth to attend Johns Hopkins and become a neurosurgeon. </p>
<p>Way too early to decide that. Go to the school you like best. Major in what you like best. You won't need to decide your residency (assuming you can even get into surgery) until well after you get into med school.</p>
<p>Oh, norcalguy, give the guy a break. You were young and just getting a feel for things once too.</p>
<p>tonypecc: UVA and William and Mary are more prestigious than the other colleges on your list and would be more likely to help you get into a more competitive school. If you get in to one or both of these and you think you can get top grades, then go there. Get involved in research and volunteering and humanitarian pursuits. You don't have to tell anyone else what medical school and what specialty you might want just yet. </p>
<p>It's commendable that you want to help others in your life.</p>
<p>If I had a penny for every high schooler who comes on here wanting to go to Harvard med school or become a neurosurgeon, I wouldn't have to borrow money to pay for med school. </p>
<p>I'm trying to get these pre-frosh focused on what's in front of them. Most of them fail to realize how tough premed really is. All these grand questions of "what does it take to get into HMS" and "what kind of schools can I get into with a 3.9 GPA and a 38 MCAT" shows they live in fantasy land. </p>
<p>I came into college expecting a dogfight and it's what I've gotten. You call me an @$$ (and I usually am) but I tell the truth. I'll leave it to the moms of the world to write things like "it's commendable that you want to help others" :)</p>
<p>I don't disagree with you, norcalguy. The second part of your post #2 is very accurate. I just thought you were a little harsh. Some high school students don't know yet what might be better kept to themselves, but they can learn that. If a high school student gets smacked down for asking a somewhat naive question, then the person will be less likely to ask other questions. They're just on a learning curve, and they need to learn to just take things one logical step at a time. </p>
<p>And I do think it's commendable to want to help others and to have a worthy life goal as a high school student. There are some who post on cc who just want to make a fortune.</p>
<p>While you may believe it was your destiny to be granted the "privilege" of being at Johns Hopkins, the admissions officers at said school may think differently. Your ability to be a great doctor doesn't start with the requirement of being at Hopkins. You're not going to help humanity for at least the next 10 years of your life, and certainly not at Hopkins during your indentured servitude.</p>
<p>Like norcalguy said, worry about your next four years first. While I don't agree that premed is necessarily tough, it does take some effort, and being accepted at any med school in the US is an accomplishment. Explore neuroscience while you're an undergrad, but don't dedicate yourself to it. I've seen plenty of premeds who claim they love a field of medicine, even though they've never experienced it. Yes, you're smart, and yes, neurosurgeons are smart, but that isn't your only path. Believe it or not, there are plenty of smart internal medicine docs and everything in between.</p>
<p>But on to your dilemma.... The place of your undergraduate education matters little when compared to your medical school, which matters little compared to your residency, etc. What matter's most in anything is the last place you've been. All in all, go to the undergraduate institution you ENJOY the most. If you really want to be a physician, you will be, grades and MCAT being decently supportive.</p>
<p>I am a Christian and although many do not agree with my beliefs, I would be overjoyed to discuss them with you, but I do believe God has a plan for my life. Furthermore if I believe that God has given me some insight into that plan I would consider myself a fool not to try whole heartedly after that plan. I ask direct question becasue I have direct goals that I believe are set in motion by a God who already knows the outcome. To talk about the dog fight of premed and how extreemly difficult it is going to be is somwhat vain, I completely expect it to be. Right now I am dual enrolling at a comunity college and am taking an applied Calculous course there. I ahave just been made one of two tutors in the School for Calculous. That means I must understand the concepts, finish my homework and be ready to teach on Wednesday after we have leaned it on Monday night. Please do not think I am being argumentative, for I only wish to give reason for the directness of my post. Why would I want to be a neurosurgion when I could make more in business in a much shorter time? I only wish to help humanity in a field that is saturated in unknowns about the human body. Think, what is life? How can we tap into the unused parts of our brain? How can we allow paralyzed people to regain use of their legs and how can we make prostetics work off of ones own neurological processes. I am not saying I know for certain the Lord's will for my life, but as of right now I truely believe this is my purpose. I pray the Lord blesses each one of you, and that somone may have truley valuable information, rather than critisism.
Ps. thanks you knack for your post. I do not feel Johns Hopkins is the only place I want to go. Just throwing up a name. I plan on going wherever I feel most led.
Ps. sorry for any spelling mistakes, it is 1:33 and I should get to bed.</p>
<p>I do not mean to be rude or disrespectful. I agree fully that God has a plan for our lives.</p>
<p>But you're planning way too far in advance. Without turning this into a theological debate (where I would assert that God's plans are usually revealed one step at a time to help build faith), I'll say simply that knowing God's plans typically involves knowing God and actually knowing what you're getting into - which you won't until you've gone through that rotation during your third year of medical school.</p>
<p>This is why medical schools do not solicit declarations of your specialty. Why undergraduate schools, even, very rarely care what kind of major you want - because these things change too much over time to be reasonably predictable.</p>
<p>If you set your heart on neurosurgery, you are missing out on many other opportunities - both in medicine and out of it - because you cannot reasonably make an informed decision for another eight years.</p>
<p>Could you have been told in a dream/vision? I happen to believe that the answer is yes, but that this is unusual. If you'll permit me to be a little bit rude, I suspect your direction is coming more from social factors than spiritual ones.</p>
<p>It certainly can't be from personal experience, since you are not yet a fourth year medical student.</p>
<p>PS: What you have described is neurology, not neurosurgery. For that matter, examining the nature of life and nerve endings is PhD work, not the sort of thing you'd usually go to medical school for.</p>
<p>Without a doubt go to W&M. You will have more chances to publish at the undergrad level because you will work the professors and the labs wont be taken over by grad students. UVA is a graduate- research focus school. Just follow the dollars. Grants to UVA and UNC fund most of the research. Undergrads just subsidize the costs.</p>
<p>The best students in Va go to W&M, then go to grad school at UVa.</p>
<p>Thank you both very much for you insightful comments. Blue, I truly appreciate you thoughts on taking it one step at a time and allowing God to lead you from there. Neurosurgery is my dream and you are correct, God may lead me elsewhere. As for the true purpose of this thread, do you recommend William and Mary above other schools in Virginia for pre-med. Also what pathway in terms of degrees do you recommend? Thank you all again and God bless. </p>
<p>Ps. To all those who define themselves as realists, dreams are what change the world. What would you have told our founding fathers who dreamed of independence, or Martin Luther who dreamed of equality? What if they had their dreams crushed? what would the world be like today? So instead of being overly critical, try to be informative and educational more like Blue. Because what would you say if the person who could have found the cure for cancer was discouraged by one of you realists. You never know what lay beyond on the road of life, but when dealing with the lives of others, be casutious.</p>
<p>From what you described in your earlier posts, I believe what you're describing is a path with a major in neurobiology and going on to get a PhD in psychological neurobiology, or something along those lines. The medical path to get there does not exist, and the closest would be psychiatry or neurology, not neurosurgery.</p>
<p>I don't know anything about the schools in question.</p>
<p>For the PhD portion of your degree, coming from a large institution becomes more important. For that component, I would recommend UVa.</p>
<p>I say it's never too early to plan ahead. If you dream of becoming going to Hopkins and becoming a neurosurgeon, then find a path and start down it, one foot after another. Believe it or not, there are many docs at Hopkins who dreamed of being there when they were high school students.</p>
<p>Your ideas are no worse than most of the questions and answers posted in this forum.</p>
<p>1.) There's nothing wrong with setting goals, so long as you retain flexibility in case you stumble into something else you want.</p>
<p>2.) The specific desires/interests expressed by the OP are actually not neurosurgery related.</p>
<p>3.) Dreams - at least serious ones - should be based on an understanding of what they actually are. In an analogy:
Sure, it's possible to become best friends with the head cheerleader and finally build a deep and everlasting love. But among all the boys who have feelings for her, most of them are crushes based on some ideal conception and reputation.</p>
<p>Some kids might legitimately want to go to Hopkins specifically: they feel a calling towards Baltimore, their family is near the area, they took some classes there and it felt like home/they liked the atmosphere.</p>
<p>Most of the kids who specifically gravitate towards Hopkins as seventeen year olds, however, are picking it not because they've fallen in love but rather because of its "civilian" (non-medical) reputation for having a good medical school.</p>
<p>If he had come on here declaring that Tufts or UVa was his dream medical school, I think he'd have received less skepticism.</p>
<p>Medical school admissions, Hopkins included, have a more rational selection scheme than high school romances. While OP's plan and path may not ultimately lead to Hopkins and neuroscience, he will gain valuable skills as he assaults each hill and mountain along the way.</p>
<p>Most medical school choices are no better founded than OP's dreams and are based on extrapololation from a small sample, based on an uninformed opinion, or merely based on accessiblity.</p>
<p>Aiming high has the side effect of encouraging achievement.</p>
<p>How can you find out more about each medical school, my $0.02? It seems hard to research to me. You can look at each school site online and read the info in the MSAR book, and the rankings in USNWR. What else?</p>
<p>It is difficult, if not impossible, to make a well informed choice about medical schools.</p>
<p>Most physicians cannot evaluate their own medical training until they have been in practice several years. As a medical student, you don't know what it is you're supposed to be learning -- you learn what you're told to without any guarantee that the material is important or useful. Since you haven't been to medical school before, you have no way of knowing whether the material is being taught well. (It is easy to know when teaching is really, really bad.)</p>
<p>The first place where medical school education could be compared is during residency, when graduates of many medical schools receive identical training and face similar challenges. Differences in performance then might be due to differences in preparation (or due to differences in character, intellect, or luck).</p>
<p>Evaluating medical schools comes down to examining the few facts available (test scores and placement of students) and a large mass of non-quantifiable information (Do people seem happy? What do people on CC think? What is the US news ranking? What does my family physician think? Do famous people seek medical care here?). Most medical students cannot defend their selection of medical schools on a rational basis.</p>
<p>My$0.02, do you trade stocks by any chance? Just wondering.
I did not mean to be arrogant by stating Johns Hopkins as a choice but this is one experance that may help explain.
Well the reason I did not list UVA as my dream school is because when I went
down to visit I really did not enjoy the camps or the people. No offense but I am a curious person, and having the all mighty UVA students treat my questions with arrogance did not spark my interest. On the other hand, I visited Johns Hopkins with a friend, who attended the school and is a now a surgeon, and the people seemed extremely interested in what my plans were, and gave me all the advice I could handle. I still am unsure of what specific degree I should at first peruse in undergraduate work and would still like to hear what all of your opinions are. I will still keep my options open and listen to the whisper of the Lord's guidance but I will continue to peruse what I believe to be my purpose. I also have questions in the area of what I should be doing to start planing for the immense cost of Medical school?</p>
<p>tonypecc: Liking people at an institution or better, liking and knowing someone who attended a particular institution is a perfectly valid criterion for choosing a medical school. Because your friend attended Hopkins and knows you, he can offer guidance in matching you to an institution. On a purely practical note, his connection to Hopkins' people may provide you access to a lab or volunteer opportunity.</p>
<p>As has been pointed out here before on the board, virtually all of the US medical schools provide a good education. If you can get into a school that has a great name, that's a bonus. If you better yourself by striving for excellence, that is a real reward, regardless of your ultimate placement.</p>
<p>A California student chooses Hopkins for a corny reason:
[quote]
So originally, I was thinking about going to a California school (as I am from there) but when I came to revisit (this sounds corny but its true), I ended up really liking my future class mates here and the faculty was really great. It seemed that they really enjoyed the students and that they did everything to help us out. I felt like that took care of the students here better.